Comments by MaryLouise

About those "lawsuits" total lies by Monsanto. Here's the real story of 37. --Unlike Prop 65, Prop 37 does NOT create any new cause of action for damages--ONLY for injunctive relief, that is, no money, just an order for the manufacturer to put on the required label.--The only action for damages is under the Cal. Consumer Legal Remedies Act-- allowing a consumer to sue ONLY for the price of the product she bought ($3, $5 whatever) without showing special injury to be sure-- but that's ALL she can recover, unless it's a class action. But no class action can proceed under that law, UNLESS that manufacturer is given advance warning and a chance to agree to start labeling in a reasonable period of time. If they do, no class action lawsuit can proceed. --Farmers have NO responsibility or obligation of any kind under this law and there's no way they can be sued for anything (unless they deliberately lie about the source of their seed in a voluntary statement given to a customer). --Retailers have no obligation under this law EXCEPT to label raw fruits vegetables meat & fish at point of sale-- and right now there's basically nothing except corn, some types of zucchini & squash and papayas that would have to be labeled; and that obligation can be satisfied with a handmade sign Scotch-taped onto the produce bin.

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The rat studies show that not only do the GMOs induce the equivalent of breast and prostate cancer in humans, but the rats are mostly sterile on the third generation. Imagine a someone in their twenties now who eats GMOs and doesn't care about it. Here's a future conversation they might have with their daughter or granddaughter who cannot conceive year after year: "You see, we really believed that we were protecting some grocer somewhere from a lawsuit or something and so we didn't vote to label genetically modified food..""We kept on eating it and didn't pay attention and then the science showed the effects...I'm sorry Honey.... Maybe you could adopt a child from Mongolia or somewhere?"

"the No on 37 campaign, which has controversially advertised that passage of Prop. 37 would increase the average family’s grocery bill by $350 to $400 per year, does not appear to have any locally coordinated leadership, "

The non-partisan state legislative office has stated that the cost to Californians of Prop 37 would be between 3/10ths of a penny to 3 cents per person per year.

"Local leadership?" Have you seen even one No on 37 bumper sticker or sign? There is no local campaign, it's all funded from St. Louis, Berlin and Geneva where Monsanto, Bayer, Syngenta and Nestle have their corporate headquarters. Labeling is required in Europe by the way.

Greg Palla I believe has a small organic vegetable patch to feed his family. The rest is cotton.

Here's the coordinator of the state No campaign. Anyone with Google can find this information:

Tom Hiltachk is the PR gunslinger behind the Coalition Against the Costly Food Labeling Proposition (CACFLP), an anti-labeling front group. A partner at the Sacramento-based lobbying firm Bell, McAndrews & Hiltachk, Hiltachk is no stranger to front groups. With a little help from his friends at Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds, he helped organize the Californians for Smokers’ Rights group to fight anti-smoking initiatives in the 1980s and 1990s. He also helped form the Californians for Fair Business Policy – a so-called “grassroots” organization, but actually a front group to mobilize business opposition to anti-smoking initiatives. That organization was funded by an “academic” front group – the Claremont Institute – which was in turn funded by tobacco companies.

"neither side has been able to come up with consistent scientific testimony to support their claims...."As though they were equals??You have been eating an expanding number of GMOs unknowingly since 1994 when they were first commercialized. It would seem the industry profiting off of your consuming their novel products could have performed since then:

A. At least ONE peer-reviewed published scientific LONG TERM human trial showing that GMO food is safe.

B. If not that, then One peer reviewed published scientific SHORT term human trial.

C. If not that, then one peer reviewed published scientific long term ANIMAL trial.

D. If not that, then one peer reviewed published scientific Short term animal trial.

E. If not that, then one NON-peer reviewed Non-published short term animal trial??

They hired a lab to do a trial of fewer than ten rats for 90 days with no publication, no scientific review and since the rats didn't all die, the food "must be safe". Monsanto, the owner of the technology had their top officials who had been appointed to government regulatory posts rubber stamp the technology. It was out of the bottle and in our food. See this chart showing who is who:http://www.cornucopia.org/is-the-usda...

(E), is the ONLY "safety study" conducted for the GMO food that an 18 year old has been eating their entire life and the rest of us since 1994.WE ARE THE LONG TERM LAB RATS. Has autism increased?, breast and prostate cancer?, ADHD?, infertility?, Crohn's Disease?, Gluten sensitivity? Allergic reactions, Lyme disease, all these "new and mysterious diseases" have been linked to the novel proteins and effects of GMOs through science that is peer reviewed and published.

Now about that cotton farmer "expert". Cotton is not a food crop. Why is the cotton farmer so active in food labeling?He's getting a piece of that $40 million of overseas money perhaps, like "Dr" Miller, and more importantlyhe's making a fortune selling his cotton seeds, normally a trash product, to food processors that use it to make cheap oil that's in all manner of processed foods.

You are getting cotton pesticides, the genetic modifications and the roundup herbicide in your children's cereal, your food and even what animals eat when you eat cotton seed oil. Pull a box of processed food out of your cupboard. Read the ingredients. (They screamed about that label too but lost long time ago )80% of what is in your cupboard is genetically modified and doused with Roundup. Yes on 37

One way that Elizabeth Emken could logically further distinguish herself from Feinstein is to endorse Prop 37.Feinstein is in the pocket of the big agribusiness combines that make money off our farmers and raise the price of food.

Emken has an autistic child. There is mounting scientific evidence about the connections between autism and the proteins in genetically modified food. Autism has increased by a factor of over 150 since genetically modified food was placed in our food supply.

Emken, unlike Feinstein who has never had a real job in her life outside of politics, has the job experience at IBM, that of raising her child and and is least a third of a century younger than Feinstein.

"Percy and Louise Schmeiser have celebrated over 55 years of marriage. In addition to operating a farm equipment dealership in Bruno, Saskatchewan Canada, they have farmed for close to 60 years. Almost on the verge of retirement, they decided to not back down to Monsanto's threats and intimidation.."

Here's who is employing some of the people who are coming up with "carefully researched rebuttals" to Prop 37:

What do a former mouthpiece for tobacco and big oil, a corporate-interest PR flack, and the regional director of a Monsanto-funded tort reform group have in common?They’re all part of the anti-labeling PR team that will soon unleash a massive advertising and PR campaign in California, designed to scare voters into rejecting the California Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act....It’s estimated that the opposition will spend $60 million - $100 million to convince voters that GMOs are perfectly safe. They’ll try to scare voters into believing that labeling will make food more expensive, that it will spark hundreds of lawsuits against small farmers and small businesses, and that it will contribute to world hunger. None of this is true. On the contrary, studies suggest just the opposite.

Here’s what is true: The opposition has lined up some heavy-hitters and industry-funded front groups -- masquerading as “grassroots” organizations -- to help spin their anti-labeling propaganda machine.

You have the right to know what’s in your food. You also have the right to know who is working tirelessly to prevent you from ever having that right – and who is signing their paychecks. Here’s a partial lineup of hired guns and organizations behind the anti-labeling advertising blitz soon to hit the California airwaves:

Tom Hiltachk: Monsanto’s Man in California

Tom Hiltachk is the PR gunslinger behind the Coalition Against the Costly Food Labeling Proposition (CACFLP), an anti-labeling front group. A partner at the Sacramento-based lobbying firm Bell, McAndrews & Hiltachk, Hiltachk is no stranger to front groups. With a little help from his friends at Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds, he helped organize the Californians for Smokers’ Rights group to fight anti-smoking initiatives in the 1980s and 1990s. He also helped form the Californians for Fair Business Policy – a so-called “grassroots” organization, but actually a front group to mobilize business opposition to anti-smoking initiatives. That organization was funded by an “academic” front group – the Claremont Institute – which was in turn funded by tobacco companies....http://www.alternet.org/story/155675

The no campaign is spending a million and a half a day to defeat something put on the ballot by almost a million Californians. The money comes from out of state.

It's about putting a small line on processed food labels just like fat and nutrition content, not banning GMOs, not taxing them etc.Those that vote no can then eat only GMOs that way. Those that vote Yes can avoid them. That's freedom.

If GMOs are so great, so allegedly beneficial, so wonderful, why are they so interested in hiding their presence? Why are people willing to gamble their unborn children' health, their own health and that of their family to protect some foreign corporation?

Desperate to keep Californians in the dark about what they are eating, to protect the billions in profits paid by increasing the cost of your food, these out of state corporations are now spending over 1.5 Million per DAY on simplistic, confusing and outright dishonest ads to defeat Prop 37 which does no more than add to the nutrition, weight and fat labels on processed food,where appropriate,"Contains "Contains Genetically Modified Organisms." The No on 37 campaign falsely and in violation of federal law attributed a direct quote to FDA in the campaign www.carighttoknow.orgvideo about why you want the freedom to read labels: